Microsoft employee Joe Lopez, who has spent the past four years working as a firmware engineer in the company’s Azure hardware systems team, was one of the protesters who interrupted Nadella. He was also joined by a fired Google employee,

Earlier during Microsoft’s 50th anniversary celebration, Ibtihal Aboussad raised her voice in protest while the company’s AI CEO, Mustafa Suleyman, spoke from the dais. A day later, an Indian techie, Vaniya Agarwal, reined in and confronted the trio of Satya Nadella, Steve Ballmer, and co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates.

The protest was part of a larger campaign by a group called "No Azure for Apartheid," which includes current and former Microsoft workers.